


crocus

by quillquiver



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Team Free Will, but not visibly destiel, castiel - Freeform, destiel if you assume it's part of canon, fluff-ish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-01
Updated: 2018-03-01
Packaged: 2019-03-25 10:05:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13831899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quillquiver/pseuds/quillquiver
Summary: Castiel is exhausted.





	crocus

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Seasons: A [Supernatural Fanfiction Anthology](http://spnshortstories.tumblr.com/)\--Spring.

His boots crunch against the last medallions of spring snow, leaving soggy, muddy imprints in the pine needle carpet beneath his feet. Everything is damp and dead, on the brink of renewal, and for once, the thought doesn’t comfort as much as make him weary. Things end, things begin again, and this endless cycle is one he’s forced to live, now.

Readjusting his pack, Castiel tries to take the pressure off his shoulders for a while—though it’s dead now, the wendigo “got him good”; his shoulders are bruised, his ankle is twisted, the right side of his body is covered in small lacerations from where it threw him against a tree, and there’s a gash on his forehead that keeps bleeding into his left eyebrow. Wiping at his face, Cas is dismayed to find his hand come away red and wet. His heart rate picks up and he takes a deep breath.

Even after living as a mortal for half a year now, the amount his face can bleed is deeply unsettling.

“You hangin’ in there, Cas?”

Castiel raises his hand and waves a little, trying to readjust his pack at the same time. It’s practically dark now—they’ll have to get their flashlights out in about fifteen minutes—and probably have double that time left to hike back to the Impala. Cas contents himself with splitting his attentions between the cacophony of redpinkpurpleblue dusk through slowly budding branches, and watching his footing. By the time Cassiopeia, Hydra, and Draco reveal themselves in earnest, he’s beyond exhausted, and the road sneaks up on all three of them like some sort of glorious miracle. Dean _whoop_ s from up ahead, and Sam, while quiet, has a spring in his step as they make their way towards the car.

Castiel, however, slides his pack off his back and onto the grass with a grunt, rolling his shoulders with a grimace. His fingers are cold and both his t-shirt and flannel are soaked with sweat. With a tug, the layers come unstuck from his shoulder blades and Cas feels a shudder overtake his body. It’s uncomfortable in an almost disturbing way, to have clothing cover the two discoloured patches of flesh running parallel to his spine. Not for the first time, he wishes he had his wings back.

He wishes he had his Grace back.

He is a riot of too much-ness, now. A finite creature trapped in a packaging far too miniscule for the universe he feels within himself. Castiel was stardust, before. He was the very essence of Physics. He was knowledge, and power, and grace, and _faith_ , and he travelled the interstellar plains of the universe as easily as he now ties his shoes. He saw the pressurized core of Jupiter, viewed the entirety of the Milky Way, and collected stardust from the Carina Nebula. He once sat in the middle of a binary star system for three Earth years just to appreciate their perfect balance.

He was— _is_ —responsible for Iceland’s Silfra Fissure. It was he, young and foolhardy and arrogant, who boasted of his ability to fuse the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates, and ultimately caused the slowly growing chasm between the two. He sat atop glaciers in the Antarctic and ate honey and almonds with Hebrew Kings. He lived in the desert among lizards and tumbleweeds. He assisted an elephant named _Alihiu_ with the birth of her child, and was given the honour of naming her son.

Castiel was a shepherd who drank wine with Mark. He was a friend of Daniel. He braided Mary Magdalene’s thick, dark hair. And that night when Heaven decreed that every door not smeared with lamb’s blood would lose their first born, he—

He was a soldier. Ruthless. Unfeeling. _Efficient._

Cas blinks in the dark, skin crawling with the feeling of a blade in his hand. He swallows thickly when the phantasm disappears. Memories come in bouts of sharpness and fog, now—the result of years of being under Heaven’s knife and the more recent finite space of his mind. Still, there are emotions attached even to those far off specters he can barely grasp. Guilt, for example. Sadness. Fear. Anger. Joy. _Love_. There is an unending riot of contrast and complimentary inside himself that is immediate, and destabilizing, and paralyzing—even debilitating—in its intensity.

Part of the human condition, Castiel has realized, is to endure too much for your own confined existence.

There are moments when Cas feels a phantom pain in his back so all-encompassing, he’s convinced he’s in the midst of meeting his end. When he’s sick, it often feels as if he’ll never recover. His own nightmares have made him physically ill. And those days he simply feels void of all emotion but a dark, comprehensive pit of Nothingness… those are the worst of all.  

Yet, Cas can make faces in the bathroom mirror and cause Dean to laugh so completely he holds the counter-top. There is a particular way Sam smiles when he purchases organic trail mix that makes him smile, too. Castiel feels happy and solid and _real_ after working in the herb garden all day, and Dean’s cheeseburgers will sometimes cause too much _contentgoodhome_ to build up in his chest until his eyes are leaking with it. The sense of belonging he feels when they’re all drinking beer and watching television, pressed close to fit on Sam’s bed, often has him wishing he could exist in one particular moment forever. What he is now is… _more_ than anything and everything that’s come before in a way that feels infinite. Important. _Sacred_. As terrifying as emotionality is, it is also the cornerstone of action. Of hate, yes, but also of _love_.

“Cas. Cas!”

Castiel starts from his thoughts, squinting into the beam of Sam’s flashlight before the other directs it elsewhere.

“You okay?”

Cas gives a brief thought to the coagulated cut on his forehead before shrugging. He waves off the hunter’s concerned frown. “I’m tired.”

“Thanks, Captain Obvious,” Dean says fondly, rolling his eyes now the potential threat of danger is past. He opens up the trunk and throws his pack inside. “C’mon, let’s blow this popsicle stand. I’m fuckin’ done, man.”

“I want a beer,” Sam sighs, following suit.

The brothers fall into conversation, and Castiel picks up his pack. Dean climbs into the car and the yellow-tinted light of Baby’s headlamps floods the grass and the gravel road. Cas groans, momentarily blinded.

When his vision returns, he pauses.

“C’mon Cas, we’re gonna stop for some grub on the way!”

Castiel squats down.

“Cas?”

Smiling, Cas delicately touches the crocus poking up from the grass near his boot. They’re hardy little flowers, crocuses. Every year, they come back a little stronger than before.

The front door of the Impala opens and closes. “Hey, you okay?”

Castiel looks up, leaving the bloom to get on with its life—to grow stronger, to put down firmer roots. “I’m fine,” he says, taking Dean’s offered hand.

“Yeah?” The hunter helps him to his feet.

“Mm.” A nod. “Let’s go.”

And lo, did the Fallen Angel of Thursday begin his journey home.


End file.
